Great Britain had a different general idea for each one of the four decades which immediately followed the conquest of Canada. In the sixties the general idea was to kill refractory old French ways with a double dose of new British liberty and kindness, so that Canada might gradually become the loyal fourteenth colony of the Empire in America. But the fates were against this benevolent scheme. The French Canadians were firmly wedded to their old ways of life, except in so far as the new liberty enabled them to throw off irksome duties and restraints, while the new English-speaking 'colonists' were so few, and mostly so bad, that they became the cause of endless discord where harmony was essential. In the seventies the idea was to restore the old French-Canadian life so as not only to make Canada proof against the disaffection of the Thirteen Colonies but also to make her a safe base of operations against rebellious Americans. In the eighties the great concern of the government was to make a harmonious whole out of two very widely differing parts--the long-settled French Canadians and the newly arrived United Empire Loyalists. In the nineties each of these parts was set to work out its own salvation under its own provincial constitution. Carleton's is the only personality which links together all four decades--the would-be American sixties, the French-Canadian seventies, the Anglo-French-Canadian eighties, and the bi-constitutional nineties--though, as mentioned already, Murray ruled Canada for the first seven years, 1759-66.